Tag Archives: nostalgia

Toodles 2020. Off You Feck!

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I’m a big bungled bag of mixed thoughts and emotions as I sit to write this. 

Usually, my last blog of the year flows easily; full of nostalgia and positivity and hope and excitement… and actually, I’m feeling all of those things right now too.  I just can’t seem to write them down in a way that will be meaningful to everyone. Because now, more than ever, none of us can fully understand how anyone else is feeling.

We’ve just come through the weirdest year of our lives.

  I could start to talk about how “while it was bad, it was actually good”, or “In the midst of the chaos, was joy”, or “the lessons I’ve learned this year”.  God I could write 20 pages on each of those titles if I’m honest. 

It was good, in its own way. 

I did learn loads about myself and about life in general.  (80 pages coming on that…next year!)

In the midst of the chaos, there was joy.  

We did make loads of memories. 

Yes, 2020 was good for lots of reasons. 2

The main lessons I learned were that actually, life did NOT need to be as busy and chaotic as it was and that actually, as long as I have my own wee family safe within my own four walls, then all is right with the world, no matter how frightening the world is.  (I wrote a LOT about our own four walls this year.  I spent a lot of time looking at them I suppose!)

And while I could sit here and wax lyrical about how we must all look at the positives of 2020 and be grateful for this, that and the other, I can not let the year end without acknowledging that it was the hardest, most frightening, confusing, frustrating and heartbreaking fecking year that we have ever faced. 

I am grateful.  I’m so grateful for my family and for health and for work.  And personally, I know so many people who have had too much sadness and hardship to bear this year. I’ve cried with lots of friends (virtually) and like everyone, I’ve had moments of WTF?

 But as always, perspective is key.  I can, and will, only ever speak for ME.

I’ve been afraid.  I’ve been stressed.  I’ve struggled.  I’ve freaked out.  (I’ve had panic attacks about going to do the fricken shopping for God’s sake.)  I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember, looking at my children, terrified that they’re not OK.  I’ve spent hours and hours stressing with my husband about our family business and wondering how many more slaps it can take,  I’ve cried onto my laptop as I tried to figure out a whole new way of trying to do my job, while trying and failing to homeschool my own children. I’ve missed family.  I’ve missed my friends.  I’ve seen my best friend once since March… I’ve been angry.  I’ve been frustrated.  I’ve been sad.  I’ve even been judgemental. Show me someone who at this stage, has NOT given out about someone else’s actions this year (and then send me whatever magic potion they’re using please.)

And yet, tonight as I sit watching the clock tick towards 2021, I can’t help but feel proud.  I’m proud of myself.  I’m proud of my kids. (Kids are amazing!) I’m proud of my husband. I’m proud of every one of my family and friends who have clawed their way through the shitshow that was 2020. 

We made so many memories this year.  We found joy we’d never realised we could find within our four walls and indeed on our own doorsteps.  We’ve been surprised by the things that we’ve missed and the things that we found that, actually, we didn’t miss at all. 

We’ve been torn apart by the ferocity of missing people and being apart from people we love. And yet, we’ve also realised quite abruptly who is important to us and who is, maybe, not.

On top of Muckish Mountain on a rare day out with some of our Rushe Fitness crew last summer.

I can look back through my camera roll tonight and share my “highlights”.  It is filled with photographs of 2020, each one telling a story to anyone who looks at it, and yet each one holds so many memories that no one but us could ever understand. Behind lots of those smiles are a million other emotions. Some of the smiles are real. Some of them are hilarious. And yet, some are frantic and frightened. Some don’t reach the eyes. 

I have looked at some today. They’ve made me smile and laugh. But I won’t be sharing them anywhere. I’m not looking back. I’m too tired to be honest! And so I’m looking forward. I can’t wait for it to be tomorrow so I can close the metaphorical door on a year that I’ve been wishing away since March.

I’m ready for it to be over.  And while I know full well that at midnight tonight, absolutely NOTHING but the date is going to actually change, I am excited for the new year.  Every day will bring us one step closer to getting back to some sort of normality, where 2020 is a distant memory that we talk about and reminisce about. 

So whether you’ve come through 2020 enlightened and empowered and energised, or you’ve skid towards the end, glass in hand, roots to your armpits and a bit delirious, I raise a glass to you tonight and wish you a better and more fablis 2021. 

Give yourself a round of applause.  You made it!

 And no matter what 2021 brings with it, it’s a brand new year that we are at least a bit more ready for than last year. 

From Emmet and the girls and myself, I wish you every best wish for 2021.  May it be filled with brighter days, good health and hugs and smiles that reach your eyes. Love to all. 

Until next year!

Me x

My Little Women.

Posted in Being Mammy, parenting by

I’m brushing my youngest’s hair and we’re chittering away.

‘You’re my beautiful Baby girl’ I say as I kiss the top of her inexplicably fuzzy head when I’m done.

‘I am not a Baby Mammy. I am FOUR.’ she replies.

‘Yes I know, you’re a big girl…but you’re still my wee baby.’

‘You don’t got no babies no more Mammy…’

Boom.

Slap.

Smash…


There we go.

She’s right of course.

There are no more babies in my house. All evidence of babies has been reduced to smudge marks on walls and a few baby toys which managed to evade my preSanta clear out.

My girls are now “big girls” and I no longer have babies apparently.

At 4 and almost 8, they’re my Little Women.

And while this makes me sad, it makes me happy at the same time.

I love the age that they’re at now. Still so dependent on us, but fully capable of doing things like getting a drink for themselves and getting dressed themselves… (Well. Sometimes!)

I love that when they waken on a Sunday morning, they can play together in the bedroom for an hour before coming near us.

I love that the pram is gone… (literally, it’s in Dublin!) and that there is no longer a need to bring half the house with me when I leave it.

I love the craic we can now have with them; enjoying their company and genuinely having fun as they unleash their personalities onto the world.



And while every age poses its own challenges…(stubborn 4 and emotional almost 8 anyone?), I have to say that this stage of our little family, is enjoyable.

Do I miss them as Babies?

Of course I do.

I look back at photographs and videos of them as newborns and wobblers and toddlers and my heart stops and starts at the same time. It swells with nostalgia and love and pride.

But it also sighs with relief, because while I loved much of the Early Years, there was much about it that I wouldn’t go back to for all the tea in China.

I would have no urge to go back to the blur of the first few months.

(I’m not in the slightest bit broody either before anyone gets excited and throws THAT particular tuppence in. 😂)

I don’t miss very much about the baby phase, except for THEM. My baby children.

Their faces, their hugs, their smells… of course I miss the little voices and first words and mispronounced phrases and funny waddles and baby giggles.

But I enjoyed them while they lasted and now, I’m enjoying the hilarious questions, and little notes on our pillow at night and listening to them play together and random conversations with two little ladies who are trying to make sense of the world.

The pudgy, sticky little arms that used to go around my neck, are now simply longer. (Still sticky sometimes!)

The beautiful blue eyes which used to stare up at me with utter trust and love, stare now with suspicion and curiosity and sometimes with annoyance, but still with trust and love.

Always with trust and love.

Rather than pushing them in front of me, I now walk beside them. Sometimes behind them as they run ahead, exploring the world.

And I am loving every second of it and savouring every second, because this too shall pass and soon, there’ll be a new phase if my Little Women with new challenges and new fun.

They can run ahead all they like.
They can get as tall and big and independent as they like.

I’ll always be right behind them, or beside them, or wherever they need me to be.

So while my Princess was correct, she was also wrong.

Because even when they’re all grown up, they’ll still be my babies.

M x

I am Scheme in the Sunshine Mum

Posted in children, toddlers by

Scheming, in the Donegal dictionary, can also mean to intentionally avoid going to school.
Playing truant, mitching, scheming…take your pick.
Last Monday.  I schemed school.
Well, technically, Mini-Me schemed school.

But honestly Teacher, it was my idea.

I didn’t even have to open the curtains at 7am to know that the sun was splitting the rocks in that wonderful way that suggests that today was going to be a scorcher.  It may only be March, but the little weather-predicting farmer in me, just knew that it was going to be fantastic.

I looked at the clock.  I looked at the clothes I’d laid out for her the previous night.  I looked at the blue sky and I knew before I’d even allowed the thought to articulate in my mind, that the blue sky was the only one of the these things that mattered.

My girl was not going to school today.  She was going to scheme.  With me.
We were going on an adventure.

I let her dress herself in whatever the heck she liked.  She chose her favourite dress-up dress; lilac and sparkly and hideously ‘Little Miss’ Pageanty, blue leggings, her gold glittery welly-boots and a multi-coloured hand-knit cardigan that we usually keep for shopping trips.

She added the final touch…a huge pink flower headband and Peppa Pig hat..and announced “Now, I’m perfect!”
And she was indeed perfect.

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We wrapped the Princess into her pram, sloshed on some suncream and packed a “picmic” of apple juice and Gingernut biscuits.
And off we went on our adventure.

We’re blessed to live in the absolute sticks…  I mean, if you’re looking for our house, you must first find the “back arse of nowhere” and take the third left.  We’re on top of that hill past the house with the fancy stonework.  If you start going down hill again, you’ve gone too far.
Sally SatNav would need three bottles of wine to find us.

It’s Heavenly.  We live on the family farm, a full field away from where I grew up.  So today, I decided it was about time I took my girls on a trip through my childhood haunts.
We wandered only a mile down the road and back, but we went so much further than that.

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We went back to the 1980’s.
Mini-Me saw the tree in the hedgerow that Mammy used to climb with my best friend Roald Dahl, which no longer has the full covering of foliage that used to hide me from my sister and brother.  (A Neighbour broke my heart when I was 14 by getting too happy with the hedge cutter.  It was never the same and my hidden reading den was destroyed.  For the record, I haven’t forgiven him yet.  I’m looking at you Mr. Bellybutton.)

We stood in the deep mud at the gate to the potato field where we used to spend a fortnight “scheming” each Harvest. (“Slave labour” some might say, but what memories we have.  I swear that there is no better taste than jam and clay sandwiches with tea in a plastic flask cup.)

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We looked at the fields where we used to tie the long grass together and run through it, playing ‘Trippies’.

We found a magic stream… a newly dug drain, but humongously exciting.  it required the immediate throwing in of twigs.

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I showed her the gate the the Fairy Kingdom which lies at the border between Dad’s farm and the next.  The old gate has been lying in that spot, above a busy babbling stream, for over 30 years.  It’s rusted, ruined and utterly convincing as an enchanted gate.  It only opens for Fairies in the moonlight…of course.

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We saw the enchanted tree in the middle of the neighbour’s field.  That’s where Pixie Hollow is…obviously.

We saw the “Jungles”; the messy, overgrown batch of whin bushes where my siblings and cousins and I had the most spectacular adventures as children.

And to top it off, as we munched our bickies and drank our juice, Mini-me realised that we were surrounded by glimmering fairies! (Midges…but hey!)
Oh the excitement.

When we returned home, she was buzzing from the fresh air and the fun.  I was buzzing from the nostalgia and from the realisation that while it may not be quite as safe as it was when we were children, my girls will have the same opportunities for imagination and explorations as I did.
They’ll play in fields.  They’ll get wellies stuck in mud.  They’ll have adventures in jungles of whin bushes and they’ll hide up trees with their favourite books.
And where my Mum used to sound the car horn as our signal to haul our behinds back to reality for bedtime, I’ll probably just text them to come home.  Because times have changed.

But what hasn’t changed is the fact that sometimes, you have to simply turn away from routine and convention and go have fun.
And you can’t measure, grade or assess how much a child can learn from simply going on a walk outside with Mum or Dad.

So for one day only, I was Scheme in the Sunshine Mum. (and it was awesome!) 🙂

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